Lots of pots later… and almost all of the kiln shelves… the kiln was full. I tried my best to squeeze in as many pots as I could all the way to the top! It’s like a game of TETRIS with pots & shelves. Gotta stack ’em right. Tight… but not too tight. Next to brick up the door, do a little preheat to dry things out and then home for a quick “nap”… for kiln firing started early this morning!

When loading the soda kiln, you start with the back stack… one shelf wide stacked all the way up. Lots of pots. Lots of posts. Trying to balance packing it tight and getting a lot of pots into the kiln against leaving enough air space for the soda mixture to move through the kiln!

Admiring what the soda mixture does to the kiln bricks over time… loving the textures & colored patina effect. Too bad it’s not good for the longevity of the kiln. Beautiful, yet slowly destructive as it “eats away” at the brick!

Started last night’s loading with an empty kiln… and tons of potential.

Unloaded my bisque kiln this morning… all good, no explosions…
LET THE GLAZING BEGIN!!

Just loaded my last bisque… had to call it “quits” on making things tonight,
for tomorrow I switch to glazing things!!! Four layers of greenware going into bisque firing. Not packed quite as tight as I would prefer, but it’s the final random pieces that just needed to be fired… including eight kinda freshly made wall vases! Fingers crossed…

One final glaze kiln. Four final letters.
Cool, unload and then it’s off for a Merry Christmas!!!

I’m making my list, and checking it twice… and there is still a lot of things to finish
in the next few days!!! ...did I mention LOTS?!!!

Just checked my kiln… so far so good. Always a sigh of relief to see that CPLT!!!

When my tile-making friend Mike Skiersch found out I was firing a cone six kiln… he was eager to “squeeze in” a few new glaze test tiles! Little did I know they would be so large, so perfect and so many. No worries… I’m always anxious to see some new glazes. I just hope a couple of these new recipes work out perfect… and that Mike is willing to share the recipes with me?!

It’s always fun to take the front door brick off the kiln. Too finally see what happened during the soda firing. Hoping to find some new treasures inside the kiln… and from the looks of the front stack… I’m pretty confident there’s more inside!!!